Sam Starbuck, the Storyteller (
sams_cafe) wrote,
@ 2008-07-08 19:37:00
I HAVE...
A THEORY!
It is about Doctor Who. Yeah yeah, the rest of you can scroll onwards.
So. Classic Doctor Who canon states -- hardcore Whovians can probably tell me which episode and/or which Doctor -- that Time Lords are woven on genetic looms. (LOOOOOOMS). However, many New Whovians treat this as a joke the Doctor pulled on one of his Companions, because:
1. The faintly obnoxious Eighth Doctor film states that the Doctor is half-human.
2. New Who has implied that if Time Lords don't exist as infants they at least exist as children; the Doctor is told he had a Very Lonely Childhood and also we see wee!Master going MAD at the age of eight.
3. At least some genetic contribution is probably going on, 'cause the first Doctor has a granddaughter and the tenth Doctor mentions not only being a parent but also a sibling.
But what if ALL THESE THINGS are possible and also Darwin got involved?
You'd get this:
Sam's Unified Theory Of Everything (Having To Do With The Doctor And Sex.)
читать дальшеDo I need to repeat, major spoilers for Journey's End? Good, I thought not.
Okay. *cracks knuckles*
So, in Journey's End the Doctor regenerates from his hand, drawing on regenerative energy poured into it combined with Donna's proximity to it. The result is a Doctor with many physical human characteristics and Donna with the Doctor's brain (eurgh).
The three components of this process are:
1. A piece of genetic material, in this case lopped off soon enough after regeneration to be replaced
2. Regenerative energy
3. Proximity of a second individual
creating a metacrisis. Which I should point out must have happened on a reasonably frequent basis for the Doctor to be able to put a name to it so quickly.
Posit that metacrisis is a valid method of reproduction for the Time Lords. You'd need at least two people, and more likely three. Bearing in mind that the Doctor-Donna metacrisis is a crude and unorthodox version of the refined reproductive process, TIME LORD SEX GOES A LITTLE SOMETHIN' LIKE THIS.
A piece of genetic material from Donor A ("Daddy") is placed in stasis or, even, on a loom. This could be a fairly large piece of material removed directly after a regeneration, or it could be a fairly small piece, say a skin sample, that Daddy wouldn't miss too much. The material is infused with regenerative energy from Donor B ("Mommy") either during a real regeneration or a semi-regeneration such as the Doctor underwent at the start of Journey's End.
Donor B, or even a Donor C ("Daddy's Roommate"), then stands in proximity to the genetic material. Unlike the Doctor-Donna metacrisis, this portion of the process is more tightly controlled, presumably because Time Lords, you know, know what the fuck they're doing. The result is a less equal exchange of -- well, whatever you want to call it, genetics or personality or soul -- than what happened in Journey's End. Donor B/C infuses Donor A's genetic material with their own as it is undergoing metacrisis. The result is a new being with a mixture of Donor A, Donor B, and possibly Donor C's genetic makeup, without overly affecting any of them beyond creating a strong parental bond.
Congratulations, Doctor, you're a daddy. Again.
(This is potentially why he flipped out about Jenny, too. It's not natural for a Time Lord's child to look and sound different from him without a second donor involved!)
But wait, there's more.
Less importantly, this explains why we've never heard of any Time Lord colonies off Gallifrey. The more Time Lords there were, especially Time Lords who left an overcrowded Gallifrey, the less likely it would be that the Doctor and the Master were the sole survivors of the Time War. But it seems like Time Lords would have a LOT of kids, because they live for nearly-fuckin'-ever and have very few natural predators. Someone (Davros) actually had to create an enemy that could take a Time Lord in battle. There should be jillions of Time Lords, the universe should be eyeballs-deep in the bastards.
But given the concept of reproduction-via-metacrisis, Time Lords wouldn't exactly be falling over themselves to breed, because it would cost at least one of the parents a partial regeneration, and if you went old-fashioned it'd probably be two parents regenerating (the one that had his metaphorical hand lopped off and the one that infused the metaphorical hand with regenerative energy) in order to produce a single child. Also, if you subscribe to the three-parents model, then you've cut the amount of babies produced right off the bat, because three people are now doing what two used to. What is that, an instant 25% drop in birth rate?
I kinda like the idea of a three-parent family unit. D'aww.
(Plus, it means that the Doctor's natural inclination is for two companions, and I ship Jack/Doctor/Rose. Because it's absurdly hot, that's why. No, I don't care whether it's Nine or Ten.)
ANYWAY.
More importantly, it explains why the Doctor seems to be interested in sex but in a sort of disaffected way. Because if you have Time Lords breeding by metacrisis, eventually they're not going to need those pesky gonads and glands. Speaking in terms of Darwinism, in fact, a Time Lord inclined to reproduce through human-style sex would be less likely to survive, because whatever else you say about the sex drive it doesn't exactly encourage self-preservation. And the point of evolution is that the most suitable creatures survive longest and breed most. So it's possible that while Time Lords still look like post-pubescent adults, they either have a greatly reduced sex drive or only vestigial sexual organs. Attraction occurs on a more exclusively mental level, because Time Lords are now breeding for brains -- the ability to carry and birth a baby easily or produce virile sperm doesn't matter anymore.
It also explains why Time Lords don't care if they look like eedjits:
Ahem.
So, theoretically, the Doctor and the Master could have produced a brand new Time Viscount, as it were; gender doesn't matter because nobody gestates. The Doctor could "breed" with nearly any species, so long as they were able to control their end of the metacrisis. And what kind of human is going to be smart, sexy, and long-lived enough to learn to control a metacrisis?
Hello, Doctor.
"Jack, you know we don't actually have to be naked to do this."
"Where's the fun in that?"
And that is my Theory.
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Stebusya: надо подсказать сценаристам
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